Are Gorgs vegetarians?

[Slackbot]

I'm writing a Fraggle fic (as usual), and one question has come up: are Gorgs vegetarians? I don't recall any references to them eating meat of any kind, and in "Mokey's Funeral" Ma tells Junior how terrible it is to kill a living thing. (But she doesn't mind killing toe ticklers. Guess invertebrates don't matter.) So--is there anything I've missed?

 

[Collgoff]

Well I think the answer is yes!

 

[Delta Shout]

Hmm...
A difficult question; certainly we don't see any of them tucking into a nice t-bone steak, but its seems odd that the worst death-by-Gorg the Fraggles dream up is to be eaten, second only to thumping.
To quote Wembley "They could roast us, or boil us, or fry us, or fricasee..."
and Convincing John "But the field can have a hole/ and you can fall in while you stroll/ and then a Gorg can come along to find a meal"

Also, if the Gorgs were truly vegetarian, would Junior have thought to take the egg from its nest for his Daddy's dinner?
(of course, that all depends whether you class an egg as meat. I know several vegetarians who consume eggs, and the same amount of those who don't)

I do remember at least one episode where Pa goes fishing, or at least a reference to fishing. Not "Mirror, Mirror"; Pa and Junior were only unsticking the Honkfish from the bend in the river, but actual hook, line and sinker fishing.
Fishing is counted as a recreational activity, and considering Pa's own personality he is likely to just cast the line in and fall asleep in the shade, but in our universe the fish caught is eventually eaten. Do you think it's possible for the activity to have developed over in the Gorg world without having some kind of benefit or reward(i.e. the fish)?

Given those thoughts, I believe that Gorgs may be omnivorous creatures and will sometimes consume meat, but the majority of their diet is made up of plants and vegetables.

 

[Slackbot]

*chuckle* It figures that someone would reply to this right after I posted To Serve Fwaggles, the fic that I asked this question for!

I don't think we have to take the comments about Gorg fragvorosity seriously. Fraggles have only recently come into contact with Gorgs, and I doubt they've really investigated Gorg lifestyles. They're big, dangerous, frightening things, and since there are cave critters who regard Fraggles as prey, Fraggles may assign that brand of danger to Gorgs too.

By vegetarian I meant not eating animal flesh. Eggs, milk, cheese, etc are OK, as you don't kill the animal for them. That's the rule Fraggles appear to follow; they have access to milk, and Boober has an omelet pan. As for fish... well, some people will eat fish but not land animals because, well, they don't think of sealife in the same way as land life. It's not as cuddly, therefore it's not as high on the evolutionary scale and thus doesn't matter. Gorgs will kill caterpillars/toe ticklers, after all.

Overall, I tend to agree with you. I hadn't thought about the honkfish, and I don't recall an instance of their actually fishing, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. I don't see how fishing could have developed without an intention to eat the fish. I think I'll stick with them being mostly vegetarian, but willing to eat fish. Probably not too often; I can't see Ma or Pa cleaning 'em, and how good a job would Junior do?

 

[Delta Shout]

*snerk*
Nah, it figures I reply to this thread, then head on over to the FF section to discover the story already posted... yeah, I had a little facepalm moment.

I don't think that the Gorgs are actually shown fishing, but I'm sure on one occasion Ma caught Pa trying to sneak off with his fishing rod when she wanted him to do something. I also think they wouldn' t eat a lot of fish, mainy due to the fact that Pa would be hopeless at catching them (probably a relief to Junior)

There are a lot of different "rules" where vegetarians are concerned, and it really depends on what you choose to believe.
One of my friend's mum was quite meticulus about her vegetarianism that she ate milk/cheese because it is a byproduct thus doesn't hurt the animal but not eggs as they were baby chickens.
There's the Vegan debate as well, where they don't believe that you are a vegetarian if you eat any kind of animal product.
Also, my dad happens to be a vego. His entire half of the family (8 siblings) make fun of him, one even gave him a shirt with the ol' phrase "save a cow, eat a vegetarian" on it. The funny thing about his kind of vegetarian is he cannot eat red meat. Seriously, it gives him food poisoning. White meat like fish is okay, but his stomach can't digest anything richer than that.
I remember last year sometime there was some kind of debate on the radio as to whether fish should be reclassified as a vegetable (The against party phone callers tended to go on the lines of "FISH IS MEAT, IDIOTS").

Maybe the Gorgs think that fish and eggs are vegetables?

 

[Drtooth]

Here's the question. Are they really vegetarians, or do they not have access to traditional sources of meat? The Gorgs live in their own world, and that world does not have cattle or chickens or anything like that. Gorgs know nothing of the world around them, other than the Fraggles, so it's safe to say they don't know of humans or the animals they raise for meat.

And I've said before, I'm very confused by some Fraggle references to "silly creature" food, like Chicken Chow Mein, in songs. But they have some window to the outside world via Uncle Matt's post cards.

 

[Slackbot]

Heh, I managed a bento Livejournal group, and I got to know all about the different dietary styles... vegetarian, vegan, ovolactovegetarian, and the various diets/diatary restrictions/etc. I ought to be careful about assigning Silly Creature labels to creatures that don't share our culture. F'r'instance, I think Fraggles are herbivores, not vegetarians. Feed a Fraggle a hot dog and you'd have a sick Fraggle on your hands. Take him by Jason's Deli and turn him loose on the salad bar and he'd be your friend for life.

The reason for my question was simply to determine if Gorgs were known to eat animal flesh or not, to decide whether Junior would find the concept of killing and consuming a creature nasty. If all he knew was a diet of vegetable matter, he'd likely consider that pretty horrible, especially since the Gorgs regard killing another creature as an appalling act (according to Mokey's Funeral, anyway).

Gorgs may well be able to digest food that these three don't have access to, but apparently they don't need it, as the former royal family don't seem to be starving!

As far as the references to things in songs that Fraggles shouldn't know about--chicken chow mein, ice cream, zippers, brandy, roads, highways, etc--I just figure that the laws of strict cultural logic are suspended when they're singing.

 

[Drtooth]

I wonder if it's still an access thing. The Fraggle Diet consists mostly of Radishes because that's all they can get out of the Gorg's garden. I'm sure they culminate other things of what they manage to find growing in the Rock or make some dangerous pilgrimage to the Gorg's house for things like spices and loose vegetables.

But then, Boober has an omelet pan. So I'm wondering if at one point some Fraggle that went exploring found a human cook book, but substituted ingredients they could find for certain human exclusive ingredients. Maybe their Chicken Chow Mein is not even chicken based at all. I think that's the best theory. They know of human foods, and make their own versions with their own ingredients and just keep the names.

 

[Slackbot]

Fraggles do eat other vegetables. We've seen them snagging lima beans from the garden, and we know how much they hate okra. I imagine they do eat other things, but radishes are the one thing they really love. There's probably some flavor in 'em that attracts them the way sugar and chocolate attract most humans.

As for cooking omelets, I figure that if Fraggles have opposable thumbs and a written language, they're bright out to have sorted out the concept of cooking. But the idea of them finding a cookbook would explain the chicken chow mein, all right.

 

[Convincing John]

Here's something I remember from "The Challenge". Red, Boober and Gobo are trapped under a bushel basket.

Red: "I wonder what he (referring to Junior) wants with Fraggles."
Boober: "Gobo, we don't taste good, do we?"
Red: "I don't know, but still, I wonder what he wants with Fraggles."
Boober: "Probably baked potatoes and mushroom gravy."

Now that's just Boober being Boober. But...since Boober knows a lot about cooking, there's something else to consider. As a cook, he'd probably know what went went with what while making a meal. Aside from the rutabaga gumbo mishap, he was pretty successful at what he made. As knowledgeable as Boober is about germs, laundry, medicine and superstitions, you'd expect his research to be pretty thorough. He's one of few Fraggles to actually research something in a book.

As for the mentions of items in Fraggle songs, my theory is that they just hear these things, either from Matt's postcards or overhearing Doc. The Fraggles just have no idea what the words mean and put them into nonsense songs...just the way a lot of little kids would. They like the way a word sounds, then insert it randomly into a song. Or they might know that chicken chop suey is something to eat, but not know what goes into it. It's easy to imagine Doc ordering takeout from a Chinese restaurant while Gobo slips into the workshop. The rest of the Fraggle five could be behind the hole waiting for them:

"Here we are, Sprockie, two orders of chicken chow mein. It sure smells good!"

"Wuff, ruff!" (pointing to the other container).

"Ooh! Yes, here's the fortune cookies, too. You can open yours now while I get the mail...oh, here's another postcatrd for that 'Gobo Fraggle'." Doc tosses the postcard in the trash, Gobo fishes it out and runs back to the Fraggle Rock."

It never technically happened in the episodes, but it sure sounds like something that could happen.

Matt encounters "fast food" in one episode. There's the hot dog, but Matt doesn't eat it. He knows it's food, (he even says "fast food" aloud as he's carrying the tray over to the table) but he's too busy trying to figure out the physical speed of the food itself. With the exception of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, fast food doesn't move like that.

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/File:Matt_219.jpg

The mention of Gorgs fishing was in at least one episode: "The Gorg Who Would be King". Ma mentions that Pa can do all the things he wanted to do, like fishing and taking naps.

"But I do all those things now, plus I get to rule the Universe!" he complained.

Do we know if anything else exists in our world that would in the Gorg world? Fish do, as evidenced by Ma and Pa. Are "Outer Space" and the Gorg worlds connected? You think they probably wouldn't be, but unless you believe in some kind of Gorgish time/space vortex how would you answer this?

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/File:FraggleRock-511-Crown03.jpg